Demonperformer

Hi, Brian, and welcome to SGL. Determining the planetary positions in relation to each other is fairly straight forward. Take a look at this wikipedia page. But if you want to see them specifically from Polaris, you would also have to consider the inclination of the entire solar system in relation to your line of sight ... it might be seen edge-on (as the Jovian satellites from earth) or face-on (as the Uranian satellites from earth) or anywhere in between. I have no idea how what that angle is or how it would be calculated. Enjoy the journey.

That is a very nice result. Well worth the time spent on it, I reckon.

Hi, DarkLane, and welcome (back?) to SGL. The sky is very patient ... most of the things you could have seen between 2013 & now are still visible, so no worries there. Enjoy the journey.

The main problem I can see is whether or not you will be able to achieve balance if you mount the tube too far forward. Adding additional weight to the back would solve that problem, but you don't want to overload the mount - apart for increasing the strain on the mechanics, this will tend to increase vibrations, which is the last thing you want when you are using eyepiece projection! IMO, these one arm mounts are not the most stable at the best of times ...

Great image of one of my favourite galaxies with its surroundings.

Great piece of outreach.

At the risk of going a bit off-topic, do some of us (DEFINITELY me included) get a bit obsessed about the horizon? I've just done a quick search and there are no fewer than 2630 UGC galaxies (so 14th mag or brighter) that pass within 10 degrees of my zenith. That is quite a lot of SN-hunting ground. So I guess that, even with horrible horizons and obscured views, given a permanent setup, I could still do something worthwhile (probably more so than what I do currently) and would never actually run out of work to do.

That has to qualify as one of the best excuses for buying additional gear I have ever encountered. Wonder how many of us would get it past the "expenditure officer" ...

But does the tube clamp separate from the arm? Genuinely don't know ... it might, but if so why ship the two bits attached? Strikes me as a bit inconvenient for packaging.

I have rooms like that all over the house ...

Always on the ball ... I've only just noticed this. Guess the fact that I didn't notice anything when it happened merely reflects the smooth way in which the changes took place. Other organisations could learn a lot from this ...

Looking at the manual, I would have serious doubts. It says that the OTA and arm come as a single piece. If they were seperable, I would think they would be shipped that way.

I have an STC duo, which has produced some promising results ... although I would not claim they can match individual filters & a mono camera. My main concern about these so-called tri-band filters is that it is not possible to separate the wavelengths. With the duo, the red channel is basically the Ha and the blue & green channels are the OIII (a bit simplistic, but you get my gist). Add SII, and that just mixes with the Ha on the red channel. Trying to separate them is like trying to turn green paint into blue paint and yellow paint ... AFAIK it cain't be done ... but I would love to be proved wrong!

Maybe I am being particularly dense, but if you are getting no image at all (from which I am assuming the black screen in the software does not change), how do you know that when you press the connect button, "the camera connects to the polemaster software"? Is it worth trying it on another machine (even if that machine would never be useable for astro work) to see if you get the dark/light alternation as you cover/uncover the camera?

Hi, Chris, and welcome to SGL. Enjoy the journey.

As long as it isn't instead of replacing the roof when water starts pouring through (something I had to do a few years back) or something similarly "important" ...

One way to get to a dark site ...

They actually aren't too much of a problem as they disappear during the stacking process.

Here's the view. South is just on the left edge of the big tree.

Interesting topic. Will do some photos later, but thinking about it, I like to complain about the streetlights, trees, parked vehicles, etc. But this is a pic I took back in 2013 from my LP-ridden, obstructed front garden (as it came out of DSS). It's Messier 7, which reaches a massive 4 degrees above the horizon at my latitude, so I guess I don't have it too bad really.

You could always offer to give up the hobby and to spend the money drinking yourself into a stupor instead ...

I recently read The Alchemy of the Heavens by Ken Crosswell. It is a little dated (1994 ... still wondering if the universe would eventually stop expanding and collapse back in on itself), but the basic building-blocks of the universe are still the same (stars, clusters, galaxies) and I found the historical aspect, together with the interviews, a very easy read.

But your images are in a slightly different league to mine.

The old canon lenses can be quite good. Main problem, I think, is finding a suitable connector for the old FD mount. However you did that, it seems to have worked. Nice result.

Very nice result. It is interesting what people see ... when i first looked at your picture, I didn't see a wizard, but a reptile (probably a lizard, but possibly a crocodilian). Apologies for mutilating your pic, but ...